Durham, N.C. — A beauty school with 79 locations, including one in Durham, shut down permanently Wednesday with no notice to students, teachers or staff.

Regency Beauty Institute allowed students to come by the Durham campus Thursday to pick up their belongings.

Sharay McCay, who was working toward her cosmetology license, said she completed more than 1,000 hours of work at Regency and left Thursday with more questions than answers.

"I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't have a school to go to," she said.

In a statement on the company website, Regency said "in short, the organization does not have the cash to continue to run the business."

"I received an automated call from Regency saying that they were shutting down and we were going to have to come up there to get our stuff," McCay said. "I don't know why they shut down, but we had no warning. We found this out last night."

The sudden closure now has McCay worried about losing hours and credits.

"I have $14,000 in loans and $500 is out of pocket," she said. "I'm going to be in debt; a lot of debt if I can't get the loans out of my name."

"We diligently explored a range of strategic options that would benefit our students, teachers, and staff — and allow us to remain open. Unfortunately, those efforts were not successful," the online statement said.

In a student questions and answers packet, the institute says it will mail out final transcripts to students and will work to enroll students in another accredited school.